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| Price |
Heart of Stone: (Steven Price) With grandiose
visions of starting a franchise to compete with that of
Mission:
Impossible, Netflix signed actress Gal Gadot to play Rachel Stone, a
super-agent working, astonishingly, for an intelligence organization
outside the normal groups. This employer, The Charter, is tasked with
general peacekeeping and management of the obligatory population of the
planet's super-villains. They conduct their work with what's called a
predictive AI quantum computer (what?) that can hack into any device in
the world, hopefully including the spaceships of Elon Musk. The story
would be more interesting if they were tasked with finding revolutionary
new orgasm triggers, but here we are. In 2023's
Heart of Stone,
these folks chase around the planet, visiting familiar James Bond haunts
and causing irreparable damage to flying objects while firing guns at
each other. Double-crosses abound, of course, and most of the team has
to be killed during betrayal in true
Mission: Impossible
emulation. The critical consensus labeled
Heart of Stone a
mediocre rehash with the sole appeal of Gadot as the lead, but that
didn't stop Netflix subscribers from making the movie one of the
studio's top summer 2023 success stories. The formulaic nature of the
film carries over to its music as well, with composer Steven Price
reuniting with director Tom Harper to provide an expected
techno-orchestral score for the topic. Since his meteoric rise in 2013
with
Gravity, Price has toiled with a number of projects of
lesser quality, and
Heart of Stone proves itself to be highly
related to the composer's music for 2017's
American Assassin. The
distinction of the 2023 score comes in Price's attempt to infuse an even
bigger and badder element of coolness and brute force into the formula
here, and the end result is merely a more abrasive, obnoxious version of
the prior work. The basic ingredients are mostly the same, a full
orchestra augmented by muscular percussion, electric guitars, synthetic
manipulation, and occasional attempts at warmth from an acoustic guitar
and solemn string accents. Not surprisingly, a solo female vocal effect
is applied in a few places during
Heart of Stone, but it's badly
processed so that it loses all organic appeal as a representation of the
lead character. Price mostly resists the worst of the processing
techniques by the industry during this era, but he compensates with the
sheer volume of his brazenly loud demeanor.
Where Price lacks in nuance during
Heart of
Stone, he compensates with an abundance of noise, the respites from
slashing and pounding often generating little interest. The mere
presence of such robust tones will suffice for some listeners, but
others will be disappointed by Price's inability to infuse any
distinctive sense of style into the ambience. Considering Gadot's
involvement in both projects, it is hard not to ponder how engaging
2020's
Red Notice by Steve Jablonsky continues to be in
comparison to Price's approach. He tries to emulate that stylish sense
of pizazz in a cue like "A Winning Hand," but he is undone by its cheesy
vocals and alarm-like elephant wails from brass. (The latter technique
pierces a few cues in the score.) Character-centric moments like "It's
Good to Hear From You" are devoid of any convincing warmth, even with
attempts by singular strings to afford such caring. Ultimately, it's the
pounding action music that defines
Heart of Stone, overwhelming
the work's two primary themes. The main identity is for the concept as a
whole, and it's a frustratingly simplistic series of two descending
four-note phrases with no secondary section until some marginally
dramatic extension from strings during "The Heart and The Charter." This
main theme repeats endlessly in the score, resolving to key at the end
of its eight notes in immature fashion despite no real resolution
happening in every instance. The idea definitely wears out its welcome
after the first half hour of the work. A second theme emerges
prominently as the score progresses, however, a series of vaguely rising
two-note figures for Stone and, to a lesser extent, the technology of
the tale. This motif does receive more intriguing treatment late in the
score, establishing that the hero's music ascends in structure while the
concept's brash attitude confidently descends back down. It's during the
final 20 minutes of the score that Price finally allows the orchestra to
assert itself, starting in "When the Moment Comes," where the group
develops out of acoustic guitar on the second theme. Still, don't expect
these final cues to really solve the simplicity or provide meaning to
the thematic structures. Price's strategy for the narrative is basically
adequate but poorly executed, too much of each facet of the score
sounding identical and the action cues diminishing in effectiveness as
they repeat themselves. The 88-minute length of the score's presentation
on album doesn't do it any favors, and the numbing experience is
followed by an obnoxious song that stylistically would fit better in
American Assassin. Reduce your expectations and reduce the volume
for this brainlessly adequate journey.
** @Amazon.com: CD or
Download
There exists no official packaging for this album. The person who wrote the track listings
needs a basic English course.
